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Prisoner (TV series)

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For the 1967 UK television series, starring Patrick McGoohan, see The Prisoner.
Prisoner (known in the UK and USA as Prisoner: Cell Block H) is an Australian television soap opera set in Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional women's prison. Because of its success in the UK, the series has become one of the most enduring in Australian television history. The series was produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation and ran on Network Ten for 692 episodes from 1979 to 1986.

Contents

Background

Prisoner was created by Reg Watson, who had previously produced the British soap opera Crossroads from 1964 to 1976, and would go on to create such popular Australian dramas as The Young Doctors, Sons and Daughters and Neighbours. Initially conceived as a sixteen episode stand-alone series, the storylines primarily concentrated on the lives of the prisoners and, to a lesser extent, the officers and other prison staff.

The themes of the show were often radical, including feminism, homosexuality and social reform. When the series launched in 1979, the press advertising used the line "if you think prison is hell for a man, imagine what it's like for a woman".

The series had an extraordinary humanity, examining in detail the way in which women dealt with incarceration, and separation from their families. Within the walls of the prison, the major themes of the series were the interpersonal relationships between the prisoners, the power struggles, friendships and rivalries. To a certain extent, the mis-fits who found themselves within the walls of the Wentworth Detention Centre became each other's family, with Bea Smith (see below) as a mother figure.

Several lesbian characters were featured throughout the show's run, notably prisoners Franky Doyle and Judy Bryant, and prison officer Joan Ferguson. The lesbian angle was never used for titillation, rather for thoughtful and realistic storytelling.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Plot overview

Stand on the white line

The viewers’ introduction to the world of Wentworth Detention Centre involved the arrival of two new prisoners, Karen Travers (Peta Toppano) and Lynn Warner (Kerry Armstrong). Travers had been charged for the murder of her husband, while Warner protested her innocence after being convicted of the abduction and attempted murder of a child. Both women are sent to the prison’s maximum security wing (H Block) where they are horrified by their new surroundings. Karen finds herself face to face with a former lover, prison doctor Greg Miller (Barry Quin), and is sexually harassed by her violent, bullying lesbian cellmate Franky Doyle (Carol Burns). Lynn finds herself ostracised by the other prisoners because of her crime (prison populations are known for their intolerance torwards criminals who commit offences against children) and is terrorised by the prison’s “top dog”, the self-styled “Queen” Bea Smith (Val Lehman), who “accidentally” burns her hand in the laundry steam press in one of the series’ most iconic scenes.

The other prisoners are rather less volatile, including the elderly, garden-loving “Mum” Brooks (Mary Ward), a bickering comic relief double act with teddy-clutching misfit Doreen Anderson (Colette Mann) and old lag Lizzie Birdsworth (Sheila Florance), and seductive prostitute Marilyn Mason (Margaret Laurence), who entices electrician Eddie Cook (Richard Moir) into amorous encounters around the prison. The prison officers, or “screws” as they are called by the women, comprised the stern Governor Erica Davidson (Patsy King), flanked by the diametrically opposed sadistic Deputy Governor Vera Bennett (Fiona Spence), dubbed “Vinegar Tits” by the inmates, and compassionate senior officer Meg Jackson (Elspeth Ballantyne).

The early episodes are a potent cocktail of violence and mayhem - involving Lynn Warner’s punishment burning, another prisoner hanging herself in her cell, unrequited Sapphic passion, a fatal stabbing and a Psycho-inspired flashback sequence in which Karen Travers stabs her abusive husband (Rod Mullinar) to death in the shower. The first major story arc-defining event in the series is the turf war for top dog status between Bea Smith and Franky Doyle, culminating in a prison riot in which Meg Jackson is held hostage, and her husband, prison psychiatrist Bill Jackson (Don Barker), is stabbed to death by inmate Chrissie Latham (Amanda Muggleton).

Extra time for bad behaviour

Prisoner premiered in Australia on 27 February 1979 and instantly struck a chord with the audience, prompting the producers to extend the series from a sixteen-part serial to an ongoing concern. This decision immediately impacted on format and characterisation, and a number of changes were made to the series.

Most significantly, the series’ production schedule increased from making one-hour long episode per week to two episodes per week. This led to the departure of the show’s first breakout popular character, Franky Doyle, when actress Carol Burns chose to leave the series, feeling that she could not continue her portrayal with the increased production rate. Introduced as a borderline psychotic given to bouts of furniture-throwing violent rage, Franky’s character was explored through her unrequited love for fellow inmate Karen Travers, who warmed to her and tried to teach her to read, finally emerging as an unloved, illiterate, deeply frustrated social misfit and a tragic anti-heroine. Franky’s exit saw her escaping from Wentworth accompanied by Doreen Anderson, and shot dead by a policeman after being on the run for several weeks.

As the series began to gather momentum, new story arcs were introduced. Karen Travers decided to appeal against her sentence and was eventually released from prison, resuming her romantic relationship with Dr. Greg Miller and becoming involved in prison reform. As original characters began to leave the series (Mum Brooks, Lynn Warner, Karen and Greg all appeared beyond the initial sixteen episodes but had made their exits by the end of the 1979 season), new characters arrived: hulking husband basher Monica Ferguson (Lesley Baker), sneering career criminal Noeline Burke (Jude Kuring), idealistic murderess Roslyn Coulson (Sigrid Thornton) and imprisoned mother Pat O’Connell (Monica Maughan). Chrissie Latham, a minor character seen briefly in the early episodes, returned in a more central antagonistic role, and a new male Deputy Governor, Jim Fletcher (Gerard Maguire), added a touch of testosterone to a female-dominated series.

Bea, Lizzie and Doreen

As Prisoner entered into production for a second year in 1980, the long-term format and structure to the series established the previous year was perfected. The characters were made up of a recognisable set of archetypes. The prison population comprised a core group of sympathetic prisoners – a top dog, an elderly inmate, a wayward youngster – and other characters such as an antagonist who threatens the top dog’s control, a middle-class prisoner out of her depth in the prison, remand prisoners waiting for their trial and hired heavies used for “muscle” .

After the departures of early leads such as Franky Doyle, Karen Travers and Lynn Warner, the trio of Bea Smith, Doreen Burns (nee Anderson) and Lizzie Birdsworth emerged as the front-line prisoners. Bea was the tough, ambivalent yet maternal leader, softened after being a mostly unsympathetic character in the 1979 episodes. The death of Bea’s teenage daughter Debbie (Cassandra Lehman) from a heroin overdose not only explained her motivation for killing her husband on her release early in the series, but also explained Bea’s uncompromising hatred of drug offenders and clouded judgement whenever children were involved. Doreen was a well-meaning but inept tragi-comic figure and Lizzie was a mischievous elderly rascal with a dicky ticker and unquenchable taste for alcohol that saw her employed in comedy storylines, whilst also maintaining a more serious dimension, sometimes contemplating dying in prison. The Bea-Lizzie-Doreen dynamic was joined early in the 1980 run by Judy Bryant (Betty Bobbitt), an American ex-pat lesbian who deliberately gets herself imprisoned to be with her girlfriend, scheming drug dealer Sharon Gilmour (Margot Knight),. Sharon was supposed to become a long term character while Judy was to die of a heart attack. When producers realized the potential of Judy and actress Betty Bobbitt (who was turned down for the role of Bea Smith, because she wasn't mean enough looking), Judy was given a pacemaker and became the second longest running character, behind Meg. Sharon was killed off in prison. This gave the show a new dynamic, as Judy was more than able and quite willing to stand up to Bea. Doreen and Lizzie were just as good friends with Judy as Bea so no longer was Bea's word automatic. It was quite strange but fun to see Judy yell at Bea and actually have Bea take notice of her. Something previously not seen.

The mix of officers also established a template of character types. The progressive Governor Erica Davidson, whose approach to the job was to the right of warm-hearted warder Meg Jackson but to the left of the acidic Vera Bennett, with firm but fair Deputy Governor Jim Fletcher often switching sides between Vera and Meg. Erica herself would face an uphill struggle with untenable directives from her superiors at the Department of Corrective Services, represented by bigwig Ted Douglas (Ian Smith). As such, the storylines dealing with the prisoners’ everyday lives were somewhat cyclical – depicting harsh treatment leading to organised prisoner resistance remedied by concessions and greater freedom which the women would take advantage of, thus requiring a tightening of the prison regime.

As well as capitalising on the obvious voyeuristic appeal of showcasing life in prison, the storylines which drove the series used familiar elements — smuggling, personality clashes between the prisoners, staff politics between the officers, organised prisoner resistance such as strikes and riots, a range of issue-based storylines, court cases and police investigations and escape plots. The series also made good use of cliffhangers, often involving dramatic escapes, crimes, and catastrophes befalling the prison and its inhabitants. The stories also ventured outside Wentworth with episodes featuring the private lives of the officers and the struggles of newly released prisoners to adjust to life on the outside, including the forces that unfortunately led to recidivism. Bea Smith is released during the opening episodes, and with nothing and no-one on the outside since the drug-related death of her daughter Debbie, shoots her estranged husband dead to get revenge, thus ensuring her imprisonment for life. Elderly Lizzie Birdsworth is released when new evidence in her case reveals that she is in fact innocent of the poisoning charge she’d already served twenty years for. However, realising that there is no place for her on the outside, the institutionalised Lizzie deliberately commits a petty offence in order to return to Wentworth which, as with many long-serving inmates for whom the prison environment and rules turns into a way of life, had become home. Whilst the series did offer upbeat storylines where some characters, such as Karen Travers during the 1979 run, made it, it also made clear that for some, like Bea and Lizzie, prison life was the only option.

Unlike many other contemporary soap operas (Dallas, Dynasty, etc.), the characters and settings in Prisoner were predominantly working-class. The storylines humanised convicted criminals by showing that many of the inmates are inside for petty offences such as soliciting and theft and even those who are imprisoned for violent crime are largely depicted as victims of the system, of social inequalities and misfortune, people who never really much of a chance in life. Additionally, a majority of the characters were female, over-40 and — because of the show's setting — were not played by typically glamorous TV actors. The series was praised many times for the opportunity it gave actresses who, under more conventional TV circumstances, may not have been cast in leading roles.

The prison setting also blurred the conventional dramatic definitions of “goodies” and “baddies”. Whilst characters such as the principled, compassionate Karen Travers, the dignified “Mum” Brooks and the motherly lesbian Judy Bryant (Judy was actually introduced as quite a sinister and dark character. She would harass the other woman, and for lack of a better word, was a bitch. Though it quickly changed) were all nominally more sympathetic than old lags Lizzie and Bea, Prisoner had no true heroines in the accepted sense and even the “villains” – bullies and stirrers like Franky Doyle, Noeline Burke, Monica Ferguson, Chrissie Latham, Sharon Gilmour and thuggish prison bookie Margo Gaffney (Jane Clifton) - were all shown to possess some redeeming characteristics.

Memorable storylines during the “Bea, Lizzie and Doreen” era of the show (late 1979-late 1981) included the 1979 cliffhanger involving a terrorist raid on the prison in which Governor Erica Davidson, an increasingly campy character somewhat resembling a St. Trinians headmistress, was shot and wounded. A long-running story arc involved Judy Bryant's vendetta against corrupt male warder Jock Stewart (Tommy Dysart) after he had murdered her lover Sharon Gilmour by pushing her down a prison staircase. Angry at the way the incident had been covered up by the authorities (a verdict of accidental death was recorded and Jock was sacked), the women rioted and held a rooftop protest in which Leanne Burke (Tracey-Jo Riley), the daughter of Noeline Burke, fell to her death from the roof. The subsequent efforts of Judy to avenge Sharon’s death and exact vengeance against Jock involved her escaping and working as a prostitute to track down Jock and kill him, and a final confrontation when Judy was out on parole that ended with the poetic justice of Jock falling down the stairs and being left permanently paralysed. The 1980 cliffhanger saw Bea, Lizzie and Doreen trapped in an underground tunnel after a mass escape plan staged during a performance of the pantomime Cinderella went somewhat awry. As Prisoner reached its 200th episode, Bea Smith suffered amnesia, with no memory of ever having been imprisoned, after an enforced transfer to country prison Barnhurst.

End of an Era

During the latter half of the 1981 season, Prisoner seemed to be moving into its next phase. Central to this shift was the exit of original character Vera “Vinegar Tits” Bennett, the unpleasant warder whom viewers loved to hate, in the most high profile cast departure since the death of Franky Doyle. Vera resigned from Wentworth, having won the job of Governor of Barnhurst.

It is at this point in the show that the steady stream of supporting characters, written into the series to complement the leading ensemble, gained in importance. The officers’ ranks were augmented by the sarcastic, militant union representative Colleen Powell (Judith McGrath), and the bespectacled and somewhat ineffectual Joyce Barry (Joy Westmore). The character of Colleen was poised to gain from the departure of Vera and then of Jim Fletcher a few months later, eventually taking over as Deputy Governor. Amongst the prisoners, Chrissie Latham and Margo Gaffney, often written as antagonists of Bea Smith, had emerged as strong central recurring characters, as had prostitute Helen Smart (Caroline Gillmer).

Towards the end of the 1981 run, the old gang of Bea, Lizzie, Doreen and Judy took a back seat to the proceedings. Bea was hospitalised for a kidney transplant operation, Lizzie was briefly paroled and Doreen and Judy were temporarily transferred to Barnhurst. The main narrative focus of the late 1981 storylines was on three new characters introduced as major players: cocky gangster’s moll Sandy Edwards (Louise Le Nay) and the highly intelligent and enigmatic Dr. Kate Peterson (Olivia Hamnett) were both convicted of murder while the cunning, villainous long-term criminal Marie Winter (Maggie Millar) was transferred from Barnhurst. The cliffhanger to the 1981 run involved the newly arrived Marie manipulating Sandy into starting an explosive prison riot to protest about the increasingly oppressive prison conditions following new directives from the Department. With a copy of the prison keys and improvised weapons, Sandy leads the marauding women through the prison, and in the subsequent siege situation, new rookie officers Janet Conway (Kate Sheil) and Steve Faulkner (Wayne Jarratt) are taken hostage.

The first few months of the 1982 run concentrated on the power struggles, scheming and double crossing between the characters of Sandy, Marie and Kate, whch involved a number of murder attempts. As Sandy and Marie clashed for the top dog position, Kate plotted to secure her release from Wentworth, revealing her true manipulative colours and playing different sides against each other for her own advantage. When all three were written out of the series once their projected storylines had run their course, the focus returned once more to Bea and co. However, by this point after so many dramatic events in the prison and the Bea-Lizzie-Doreen-Judy quartet still cosily ensconced as the leading characters, the series had started to show its age. In many subtle, not immediately apparent ways, it was the end of an era and it was clear that a radical shake-up was needed to give the series a new lease of life.

Freak Out

That new lease of life was provided by the arrival of the formidable new officer Joan “The Freak” Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick). Enforcing her will through her black leather-gloved fists, molesting prisoners during unofficial “body searches” and taking her cut on all the prison rackets, Ferguson was just as corrupt, calculating and sadistic as some of the worst prisoners, but was on the other side of the bars and therefore untouchable. Bea Smith was soon awake to Joan’s villainy, and the two became deadly enemies. Joan schemed to beat Bea, while Bea plotted to oust Joan, thus beginning a new standard story arc for the series – in which the women of Wentworth try to “get rid of the Freak”. But Ferguson wasn’t going anywhere, having swiftly become an integral presence in the show, and increasingly its most iconic character, much like J.R. Ewing in Dallas or Alexis Colby in Dynasty.

Other developments during this period were the return of Chrissie Latham and Margo Gaffney to the show to bolster the ranks of the now somewhat empty-looking cellblock as Doreen and Judy were released from Wentworth. Doreen left the series, while Judy took charge of a new halfway house for ex-prisoners, named Driscoll House, after its first resident, young Susie Driscoll (Jacqui Gordon). The action was then split between the prison and the halfway house, which allowed the series to explore more issue-based storylines through the Driscoll House residents. Doomed heroin addict Donna Mason (Arkie Whiteley) featured prominently both as a remand prisoner and as a resident of Driscoll House, while another halfway house guest, young biker Maxine Daniels (Lisa Crittenden), also ended up at Wentworth and joined the regular cast, filling the gap left by Doreen.

The main driver of this period however remained the ongoing animosity between Bea Smith and Joan Ferguson. Their conflict peaked in time for the 1982 season cliffhanger, in a showdown which brought the prison, literally, to the ground. Smith decided to finish Ferguson once and for all, so she lured The Freak into a trap by falsely claiming that Ferguson's inciminating secret diaries had been hidden in isolation by another prisoner, white-collar thief Barbara Fields (Susan Guerin) (in reality Fields had hidden them in the Governor's office). As a decoy Chrissie Latham was to light a small fire in the prison library. A recalcitrant Margo Gaffney had angrily criticised the decoy fire idea as weak and predictable, claiming that for anyone to be fooled it had better be a pretty big fire. She refused to co-operate further with the scheme but as the plan got underway Margo secretly went and set a much larger fire in a storeroom. Unfortunately a large stock of mineral turpentine was being temporarily stored there.

The fire spread out of control while Bea Smith and Joan Ferguson battled it out in the isolation wing. In the confusion of the prison evacuation, Barbara Fields made her way to the Governor's office to retrieve the diaries. The fire overloaded the prison's security system which engaged the riot alarm which caused all the prison gates to automatically slam shut and lock, leaving prisoners and staff trapped in the burning prison. Fields was overcome by smoke and collapsed in the Governor's office as the flames surrounded her (and the diaries) while two other inmates “Mouse” Trapp (Jentah Sobott) and Paddy Lawson (Anna Hruby) found themselves trapped in the laundry. Paddy attempted to escape through the air ducts while a panicking Mouse ran through the corridor trying each door in turn. Meanwhile, Governor Erica Davidson valiantly ran back inside the prison to try to unlock the security gates.

Ferguson had beaten Smith to an unconscious state but when the gates slammed shut she was trapped in the cell block, with Smith - along with Ferguson's dropped keys - lying just out of reach on the other side of the locked gate. In the final scene of the episode a vengeful Smith regained consciousness, and, realising that having beaten Ferguson she would now be ineligible for parole, vowed she would not pass the key to Ferguson and that the two would die right there in the fire. The opening episode of the 1983 season concluded the story, with the rescue services at work but with two corpses brought out of the prison on stretchers. The “Great Fire of Wentworth” story arc now ranks amongst the most popular with Prisoner fans.

Bea Seeing You

The 1983 season was mainly characterised by a high turnover of short-term characters and storylines but continued the rivalry between Bea and the Freak. As more core cast departures took place as Chrissie Latham, Margo Gaffney and Erica Davidson all left the series, a major new player, the callous, menacing and brutal double murderess Nola McKenzie (Carole Skinner), entered the fray as a new adversary for Bea and a partner in crime for Joan, becoming the first prisoner to actively collude with the Freak, running contraband rackets and plotting to seize power from the “good” top dog.

The Bea-Joan-Nola conflict reaches its height in a memorably bizarre storyline in which Joan and Nola attempt to drive Bea either insane or to suicide through the memory of her dead daughter Debbie, coercing Tarot reading medium and remand prisoner Zara Moonbeam (Ilona Rodgers) to assist them. But the plan backfires – and it is Nola, not Bea, whose corpse is taken away from Wentworth. A few months later however, Joan finally triumphs over Bea after a major confrontation in which the sadistic screw succeeds in having her old enemy transferred to Barnhurst. Having played Bea Smith for 400 episodes, actress Val Lehman had tired of the role and resigned from the series. Shortly afterwards, the series had another major loss when actress Sheila Florance also decided to leave, leading to the departure of Lizzie Birdsworth. This now left actress Elspeth Ballantyne, alias officer Meg Morris (nee Jackson), as the only original cast member still in the series.

Fresh Blood

With Prisoner heading towards the 1984 season and the recent high profile cast departures, the series was retooled once again. New characters had been introduced during Bea Smith’s final few months on the show, and they now enjoyed prominent roles in the series. Ann Reynolds (Gerda Nicolson) replaced Erica Davidson as a spirited, no-nonsense new Governor and amongst the prisoners, previous background bit player Phyllis Hunt (Reylene Pearce) was given a more expanded role amidst new arrivals such as dreamy romantic and serial bigamist Sandra “Pixie” Mason (Judy McBurney) and cool, villainous vice queen Sonia Stevens (Tina Bursill). Judy Bryant was brought back into Wentworth as a “stopgap” top dog – the Driscoll House plotline being phased out of the series after Judy had committed euthanasia on terminally ill former inmate Hazel Kent (Belinda Davey).

Other new additions to the cast included Cass Parker (Babs McMillan), whose slow wit and gentle nature was offset by her immense physical strength and murderous bad temper, middle-aged con artist Minnie Donovan (Wendy Playfair) - who was somewhat a replacement for Lizze - and volatile but vulnerable street kid Bobbie Mitchell (Maxine Klibingaitis) - filling the gap left by the now-departed Maxine. The major players of the 1984 run however were antagonistic Reb Kean (Janet Andrewartha), a dynamic but troubled young woman who had been the brains behind an armed robbery, having turned to crime after rebelling against her wealthy family and the series’ new central top dog – Myra Desmond (Anne Phelan), a thoughtful but tough ex-prisoner of Wentworth who had previously made sporadic appearances in the show as a representative of the Prison Reform Group, now back inside for a long stretch after killing her husband. Both Reb and Myra made enemies of the Freak – and of each other – and the series continued. During the first half of 1984, this period of transition and the storyline developments with the new cast were complemented by return appearances from departed characters such as Wally Wallace (Alan Hopgood), Helen Smart, Erica Davidson, Doreen Burns, Margo Gaffney and Marie Winter (though this also marked the final appearance of all these characters).

The Beginning of the End?

Prisoner remained a popular programme, however the 1984 and 1985 seasons are characterised by a number of jarring cast reshuffles, preventing the series from re-establishing the continuity and focus it had enjoyed in earlier years. Mid-1984 saw the exits of recently introduced characters such as Minnie Donovan, Sonia Stevens and Cass Parker as well as the departure of long-time Deputy Governor Colleen Powell. In their place came juvenile prankster Marlene Warren (Genevieve Lemon) and elderly inmate Dot Farrar (Alethea McGrath), who was in turn replaced by another old dear, Ettie Parslow (Lois Ramsay). More cast departures followed with the exits of Reb Kean, Pixie Mason and Bobbie Mitchell.

More enduring inmates introduced during this period were sneering troublemaker Lou Kelly (Louise Siversen), who developed from a bit player to becoming a sociopathic wannabe top dog and the series' main villain, dopey offsider Alice “Lurch” Jenkins (Lois Collinder) and streetwise card sharp Lexie Patterson (Pepe Trevor). The series also introduced a trio of male inmates – Geoff Macrae (Leslie Dayman), Matt Delaney (Peter Bensley) and Frank Burke (Trevor Kent) – transferred to Wentworth for their own safety after preventing a riot at their men’s prison. After a few months, the male prisoners were also gone, together with Marlene Warren and long-serving character Judy Bryant.

To fill the now empty cells, a mass transfer from Barnhurst after a riot there had burnt out a cellblock (and had apparently ended in the offscreen death of Bea Smith) introduced five new inmates to the series – Nora Flynn (Sonja Tallis), a reformed murderess, ageing cat burglar May Collins (Billie Hammerberg) and her partner in crime, former fence Willie Beecham (Kirsty Child), garden-loving misfit Daphne Graham (Debra Lawrance) and shy but highly intelligent thief Julie Egbert (Jackie Woodburne). Other characters introduced during the "Barnhurst Five" era were Ann Reynolds' daughter Pippa (Christine Harris) and her former schoolmate Jenny Hartley (Jenny Lovell), who ended up in H Block on remand after being accused of murdering her grandmother. The physical threat of the character of Joan Ferguson was also toned down, and she was utilised in storylines that explored her more vulnerable flipside, such as her doomed relationship with fellow officer Terri Malone (Margot Knight).

However, after yet another cast clear-out six months later, the “Barnhurst Five” was down to one, with only Julie Egbert remaining in the series. At around the same time Terri Malone, Pippa Reynolds and Jenny Hartley also departed in quick succession.

Stretching Credibility

The series became more and more violent as it went on, perhaps stretching credulity as it did so. The 1983 cliffhanger had involved the mass murder of inmates by psychotic warder David Bridges (David Waters). Twisted psychologist Jonathan Edmonds (Bryan Marshall) arrived at Wentworth to conduct research, brainwashing Cass Parker into trying to kill her best friend Bobbie Mitchell. During her final stint in 1984, the villainous Marie Winter colluded with "the Freak" and organised another major riot, in which the cellblock was again set on fire, before being involved in a spectacular set piece escape by hanging from the landing gear of a low-flying helicopter.

Serial murderess Bev “The Beast” Baker (Maggie Dence) terrorised both staff and inmates with her thrill-seeking antics, which included almost throttling Marlene Warren, cutting open Bobbie Mitchell’s hands with a razor blade, stabbing a visiting social worker in the heart with a knitting needle and finally committing suicide by injecting herself with an empty hypodermic syringe to induce a coronary. Officer Meg Morris was brutally raped in her own home by a masked intruder on the orders of psychopathic inmate Angel Adams (Kylie Foster). Joan “The Freak” Ferguson faced off against her murderous male counterpart Len Murphy (Maurie Fields) in a “bad” screw’s turf war. Towards the end of the 1984 run, as Myra Desmond and Reb Kean had a final confrontation over the top dog position, Governor Ann Reynolds received poison-pen letters and death threats. This eventually led to both her and Meg Morris being kidnapped and left gagged and bound in a crumbling warehouse laden with bombs and lethal trip-wire booby-traps.

The 1985 run was no less action-packed. “Pixie” Mason was raped by male inmate Frank Burke and went into a coma from the shock. Lou Kelly tried to kill Myra Desmond on several occasions in her bid to become top dog, and even made an attempt on Joan Ferguson's life armed with a home-made gun. The Freak was hospitalised for emergency brain surgery after having a prison library bookcase dropped on her head. Prior to her operation, Joan had been suffering from blackouts, which Myra Desmond used in an unsuccessful scheme to get rid of her, bashing Lou Kelly and framing Joan for the assault.

Perhaps the most striking story arc of this period is the infamous “Ballinger siege”. The storyline occurred a few weeks after the introduction of the Barnhurst Five and saw both staff and inmates held hostage by armed mercenaries who had broken into the prison to spring high profile remand prisoner Ruth Ballinger (Lindy Davies) on the orders of her drug baron husband. Holed up inside Wentworth by the police, the terrorists take the women and officers Joan Ferguson and Joyce Barry captive, threatening to shoot one hostage every hour until they are given safe passage out of the country while outside the police and Governor Ann Reynolds argue over sending in the local SWAT unit. The siege climaxes in an airfield shoot-out with Joan as a hostage, but not before the shocking murder of top dog Myra Desmond, who selflessly sacrifices herself to save the other women.

The subsequent post-siege storylines were rather more low-key with Nora Flynn's run as a pacifist top dog following Myra's death. By the end of the 1985 episodes storylines began to become more lively. This included the return to Wentworth of former hard case Reb Kean, now a timid and meek figure having gone through 27 rounds of ECT. Meanwhile officer Joyce Barry was beaten half to death by malevolent remand inmate Eve Wilder (Lynda Stoner) who then pinned the blame on the erratic and forgetful Reb. When Nora herself tired of the top dog power struggles in the prison and escaped, she was tracked down and murdered by a criminal-hating psychotic. Her corpse was subsequently dumped outside the prison gates.

Final Stretch

The final year of Prisoner is mostly based around the conflict between the Freak and a new challenger, brash biker Rita “The Beater” Connors (Glenda Linscott) who takes over as the series’ new top dog, when previous incumbent, the vicious Lou Kelly, clashed with tough temporary Governor Bob Moran (Peter Adams) and overreached herself by igniting a bloodthirsty riot that threatened the lives of both staff and inmates. After the riot (which marked the series' 600th episode), Lou’s former stooge, Alice Jenkins, switches sides and becomes friends with Rita, who forms a new prison gang – the “Wentworth Warriors” - including Lexie Patterson, Julie Egbert, demure housewife Nancy McCormack (Julia Blake), on remand for killing her husband but actually covering up for her son, biker chick "Roach" Waters (Linda Hartley) and vivacious con-woman Lorelei Wilkinson (Paula Duncan).

As well as the Freak, Rita’s chief adversary is Kath Maxwell (Kate Hood), a middle-class woman who retaliates against Rita for her brutal initiation into prison life because of her crime – the mercy killing of her terminally ill daughter - and toughens up, becoming a serious rival for the top dog role with her new hard attitude and monopoly on contraband rackets in the prison. Kath is backed up by her retarded, comic-loving cellmate Merle Jones (Rosanne Hull-Brown). Other new inmates to arrive in 1986 include sneering racketeer “Spider” Simpson (Taya Stratton) and blackmailing prostitute Lisa Mullins (Nicki Paull/Terrie Waddell). The officers’ ranks are bolstered by the arrival of new trainees, including Meg Morris’ son Marty Jackson (Michael Winchester) and the mean Rodney Adams (Philip Hyde).

Episode 692: Is this the end of the road at last for Joan Ferguson?
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Episode 692: Is this the end of the road at last for Joan Ferguson?

Despite these new developments and storylines including a work release project on a boat out at sea and a stay at the high security prison Blackmoor for Rita, the programme's viewing figures were falling. Ratings had been in decline for some time, falling to even lower levels during 1986, resulting in Network Ten deciding in July 1986 to not renew the series for another year. Production on the series finished on 5 September 1986 and the final episode aired, in Melbourne, in December 1986.

The show's producers had several weeks notice the series was ending, allowing them to craft suitable storylines leading to a strong conclusion, one which involved the final defeat of the villainous Joan “The Freak” Ferguson. The final episodes of Prisoner deal with the redemption of the misunderstood Kath Maxwell as well as concluding the ongoing dynamic between Rita Connors and Joan Ferguson. Shockingly diagnosed with terminal cancer, Rita conspires with a jaded Joan, totally disillusioned by the prison service, to rob a building society. But all is not what it seems….

List of Top Dogs

The struggle for the position of "top dog" (unofficial leader) amongst the women was always a key storyline in the series. The following characters were top dogs at one stage or another in the series' run:

Distribution & Reception

Prisoner was the first late night Australian soap opera exported to the UK where it was billed as Prisoner: Cell Block H (to avoid confusion with the other well-known British series, The Prisoner, although it always remained as simply Prisoner on-screen) on ITV from the mid 1980s until the early/mid 1990s (depending which region you lived in). It achieved enduring success there despite much negative criticism from reviewers, and the fact that the series never received a network screening on ITV. Some ITV companies such as Yorkshire Television showed the series once a week whilst others such as Central and Granada Television stripped the series across three days. Most ITV contractors though screened it twice a week in as had been the pattern in Australia.

Because the series was shown on all ITV companies late at night (just before closedown at first, then as the first programme of night-time programming with the advent of 24-hour broadcasting in the late 1980s), it became a favourite of the local continuity announcers. The announcers would often joke about characters and plots before and after the programme and during the end titles.

On Central, Mike Prince was fond of satirical announcements linking the previous promotion to the Prisoner episode following, leading to announcements like "But Ayer's Rock pales into insignificance compared to the might of Joan Ferguson next tonight on Central in Prisoner: Cell Block H." Over the credits of an episode where Vera discovers Pat O'Connell communicating with her son a Granada announcer came to the conclusion that "Australia IS a VERY strange place." Many continuity announcers on the then-regional ITV stations made similar announcements before and after the programme, helping to boost its cult status. This style of announcement was later borrowed by the UK's fifth channel to accompany episodes of Sunset Beach, with a similar effect. Channel 5 also repeated Prisoner in a late night slot from 1997 to 2001, granting the series its first ever networked screening on British TV. These broadcasts featured the same kind of jokey comments and reading of viewer's comments over the closing credits, usually from senior announcer Bill Buckley, who's camp delivery, but with an obvious fondness for the series, somehow suited the show perfectly.

Yorkshire Television was the pioneering ITV company to transmit the series in the UK at 11.00pm on Monday 8th October 1984 in a weekly slot until episode 39 in June 1985. The series resumed in January 1986 in the same slot taking a summer break in May 1987. Just before Yorkshire halted, Central Television had started screening the show three times a week in a similar Saturday, Sunday and Monday late slot from April 1987. Central completed the series in December 1991, a span of just over 4.5 years. At the same time in December 1991, Yorkshire were still screening it weekly on Mondays and other regions had overtaken them. Yorkshire's first ever week with two episodes happened in January 1993 when a Thursday episode was added to appease viewers in the Tyne Tees region. Yorkshire and Tyne Tees reached the final episode in April 1997 some 12.5 years after Yorkshire's start. Other areas, such as London region Carlton (formerly Thames), and southern region Meridian (formerly TVS) never reached the end of their respective runs of the programme - after much darting around the late night schedules, eventually disappearing in the late 1990s.

Although they can both claim to have screened the series until the final episode, both Border Television and Tyne Tees Television had to skip a number of episodes. In December 1992 Tyne Tees had to miss the vital episodes 287 and 288 introducing The Freak as Tyne Tees and Yorkshire arranged to screen ALL programmes simultaneously from 1 January 1993. Yorkshire had reached the Tyne Tees two at the end of 1992. During 1994 Border Television brokered a similar arrangement with Granada and Border viewers had to miss around 60 episodes from around episode 480.

Yorkshire Television were very strict with cutting scenes involving hanging. Notably the attempt to hang Sandy Edwards and the successful Eve Wilder hanging were cut. This was mainly due to a local prison HMP Leeds in the Yorkshire region having an extremely high number of hangings in preceding years. Yorkshire also heavily edited the fight scene with Joan and Bea in episode 326 without ruining the plot for viewers in their region and Tyne Tees.

When Granada TV screened the final episode in the UK, continuity announcer John McKenzie conducted an on-air interview via telephone with Maggie Kirkpatrick who played The Freak.

The ITV regions inserted two commercial breaks into each episode enabling three parts per show. The breaks were usually inserted at the point of the second and foutrth break as would have been seen in Australia. At the end of the show the cliffhanger would lead straight into the end credits, unlike in Australia where a sixth break was inserted.

ITV Regional Scheduling

ITV Region
Programme Schedule Pattern (all end at Episode 692 unless otherwise stated)
Start Date
Days Screened
End Date
Anglia Television ??? Tuesdays and Thursdays, then changed to Sundays and Mondays. Then ??? ???
Border Television ??? Fridays. Then ??? Tuesday 28 February 1995 (as Granada)
Central Television April 1987 Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. The Saturday episode later changed to Fridays Monday 16 December 1991
Channel Television As TVS & Meridian As TVS & Meridian As TVS & Meridian
Grampian Television ??? Sundays and Mondays, Then ??? Monday 11 March 1996
Granada Television February 1988??? Sundays and Mondays. Then Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. Then ??? Tuesday 28 February 1995
HTV West & Wales ??? Sundays and Mondays. Then ??? Thursday 25 April 1996
Scottish Television ??? Fridays. Then ??? Tuesday 19 November 1996
Thames Television & Carlton Television ??? Tuesdays and Thursdays until Carlton replaced Thames and screened it on Tuesdays only. Then Thursdays only. Then Mondays only. Then Thursdays only Episode 598 in August 1998
Television South & Meridian Broadcasting ??? Thursdays and then changed to Mondays under Meridian Episode 586 on Monday 12 July 1999
Television South West & Westcountry Television ??? TSW's successor Westcountry Television showed the series on Mondays and a Thursday episode was added in August 1997 Thursday 30 October 1997
Tyne Tees Television Thursday 7 April 1988 10.40pm Thursdays. A Sunday episode was added in 1990. In late 1992 another episode was added on Mondays. In January 1993, Tyne Tees and Yorkshire screened the programme on Mondays and Thursdays. Monday 7 April 1997
Ulster Television ??? ??? Episode 562 on Monday 15 December 1997
Yorkshire Television Monday 7 October 1984 11.00pm Mondays with a Thursday episode added from January 1993 Monday 7 April 1997

In addition to the UK and Australia, the show has also aired in Canada (where the series was known as Caged Women), New Zealand, South Africa, Malta and the United States of America. Its US broadcast is noteworthy for a candlelight vigil held outside the Los Angeles station which aired the show by lesbian fans of the show to mourn the on-screen death of biker Franky Doyle (Carol Burns).

The show has a cult following in Sweden, where it has been shown on TV4 for many years under the title Kvinnofängelset (The Women's Prison). An unofficial fan club organizes an annual get-together, and also gathered several thousand signatures (including that of actress Elspeth Ballantyne) to convince TV4 to continue airing the show in 2000. Now, the show has ended for the second time in Sweden and the fanclub has once again started to gather signatures to convince TV4 to air it a third time in 2005. TV4 originally screened the screened the series in a late night 1am slot three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdys and Saturdays. Duing the repeat run, the show was accommodated in a slightly later slot around 2.15am four times a week on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. All episodes were repeated at the weekend - Friday night had the Monday and Tuesday episodes and Saturday night had the other two.

The Show was seen as quite a violent and brutal close up of modern day prisons at that period of time.

Prisoner was last shown on free-to-air television in Australia on Channel 10, on December 13, 1996, with Episode 196.

Trivia

Prisoner: Cell Block H - Behind The Scenes was published in 1990. The book is notorious amongst Prisoner fans for the number of factual errors it contains.
Enlarge
Prisoner: Cell Block H - Behind The Scenes was published in 1990. The book is notorious amongst Prisoner fans for the number of factual errors it contains.

DVD Release

Australian DVD release of Prisoner.
Enlarge
Australian DVD release of Prisoner.

Prisoner has been released on DVD (Region 4, Australia), in 3 Box Sets. So far, only a fraction of the 692 episodes have been covered. The first box set has also been released in the UK and the U.S.

Volume 1:

Note: The first set includes on-camera interviews with Val Lehman (Bea Smith), Anne Phelan (Myra Desmond) and casting director Jan Russ.

Volume 2:

Volume 3:

See also

Episodes

1979: Episodes 1-82

1980: Episodes 83-165

1981: Episodes 166-246

1982: Episodes 247-326

1983: Episodes 327-416

1984: Episodes 417-505

1985: Episodes 506-588

1986: Episodes 589-669

1987: Episodes 670-690

External links

 

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